NEW YORK, September 25 — Nepal’s foreign minister, Shishir Khanal, used a New York platform on Friday to argue that his country’s geography should be treated as an asset rather than a constraint, telling an Asia Society audience that Kathmandu can serve as an economic, digital and strategic bridge as Asia’s weight in world affairs grows. Khanal was speaking at an event titled “Steering Nepal’s Future in Asia’s Rising Century,” according to his private secretariat. The remarks were reported by Republica from Kathmandu.
“Nepal is not small. Nepal is strategically located,” Khanal said.
“The size of our neighbours is a geographical reality, but it should never set the limits of our ambition.”
Floods recast as a foreign policy problem
Khanal described the recent floods as a “Himalayan tsunami,” and said the disaster showed why climate change belongs among Nepal’s strategic foreign policy priorities. He called for effective early warning systems, the sharing of water data, predictable grant-based climate finance, and practical cooperation with neighbours and international partners. Another speaker at the event, identified as Shah, made the point bluntly.
“Climate change does not recognize borders. Glaciers and floods do not travel with a visa stamped on passports,” Shah said, stressing that countries like Nepal bear a disproportionate burden.
On Asia’s rise, Khanal said the continent is home to about 60 percent of the world’s population and accounts for a large share of the global economy. He presented that as an opportunity rather than a threat, and said Kathmandu could become a centre of Asia’s economic and social transformation. “Our question is no longer how Nepal survives between two large neighbours.
Our question is how Nepal creates value between them and beyond them,” he said.
Energy, borders and the case for investment
Khanal pointed to Nepal’s hydropower potential as a link to the region’s economic growth, noting that the country already exports clean electricity to Bangladesh through India. Production in special economic zones near the border, he said, could connect Nepal to global supply chains. Cooperation with China, he argued, should rest on practical, commercial and long-term foundations.
He called for connections across the Himalayas through roads, tunnels, dry ports, air services, digital networks and cross-border rail links. While Nepalis must decide their country’s future, international partnerships can help them pursue it, he said.
Khanal welcomed investment and cooperation from the United States, Europe, ASEAN, Latin America and other partners. The pitch lands at a moment when Nepal’s two large neighbours continue to shape its economic options, and when climate finance remains a live dispute between developed and developing states. What to watch next is whether the early warning and water-data proposals Khanal outlined attract concrete backing from the partners he named, or remain, for all the noise, a set of aspirations delivered from a New York podium.
